With many opinions circling the debate on how to prevent mass shootings, like the recent Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, many are asking: "What's the answer?"

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Is a national assault weapons ban the answer? How about better background checks?

Two Oakland County Commissioners think they are headed in the right direction.

"After looking further into this issue, we realized that we still need more information," said Commissioner Marcia Gershenson.

Gershenson, D-Bloomfield Township, and Bill Dwyer, R-Farmington Hills, have teamed up in a bipartisan effort to propose a study group be created to research background checks on individuals and identify situations where a person should be prohibited from purchasing a firearm.

The suggested study group would include representatives from local law enforcement agencies, The Oakland County Community Mental Health Authority, Common Ground and the Oakland County Board of Commissioners.

But that's not enough, the pair say.

They have also recommended, via a recent conference, that increased measures need to be pursued in relation to mental health funding and the mental health portion of the FBI's background checks when running information through the entity's National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS.

"Michigan law does not consider mental health in the NICS checks," said Dwyer. "We're urging a change to that law."

Dwyer, a 48-year veteran of local law enforcement, even went so far as to suggest that stakeholders in the debate over gun ownership rights such as the National Rifle Association should assist funding of "mental health and law enforcement programs directed at the prevention of gun violence."

The problem with violence

"Guns don't kill people, people kill people."

The discussion continues more than a month after the Dec. 14 massacre at Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary that left 26 people dead, including 20 children. And the responses to the above statement still vary.

On either side of the issue, one thing remains clear: "There's no easy answer," said Dwyer.

Finding the root cause of mass gun violence is just that: Not easy.

Jim Kesteloot, owner of Independence Township's Accurate Firearms, says the problem is much deeper than just a gun.

"It's a tool," said Kesteloot, a Holly resident. "While all of us are saddened by (the Newtown shootings), going after the gun is not the right thing to do."

A proud NRA member, Kesteloot was demonstrating in support of gun rights off Dixie Highway Jan. 19, on National Gun Appreciation Day.

"People think you can just go out, buy a gun off the street or go into any gun store and buy one," said the gunshop owner. "I think what's going on in our government, personally, doesn't have anything to do with what happened at Sandy Hook ... what's going on in our society is (the government) is trying to disarm Americans."

On the issue of mental health, Kesteloot said the problem lies with modern societal mores.

"There are video games available on the Internet called 'Kindergarten Killer,' where kids think it's fun to go around and do that graphically ... this is a real game that exists today," Kesteloot said. Now, "you can't pledge allegiance to the flag, you can't have religion in schools, you have kids playing these games -- what do you think is going to happen? Every once in a while, a kid's going to go haywire."

Columbine, Virginia, Aurora, Connecticut -- all of these places have one thing in common, Dwyer said: A mass shooting that took place where the perpetrator had "a variety of mental health illnesses."

Beaumont psychiatrist Joel L. Young said the risk of violence increases with the existence of several risk factors.

However, "most people are mentally well," said Young.

As the Medical Director of the Rochester Center for Behavioral Medicine, Young sits on several boards and leads a team of psychologists, nurses and counselors in working with patients every day.

"It's difficult to determine who constitutes a threat," said Young. "Usually, we'd define that group as people who have psychosis, people who are divorced from reality, people with paranoid delusions or fixed, false beliefs that the government or certain individuals are out to get them."

Young said individuals like Adam Lanza -- the 20-year-old shooter in the Newtown massacre -- probably have a combination of factors.

"Keep in mind, I did not examine Lanza; I haven't seen his medical records," Young said. "People prone to violence are certainly young males who have impulse discontrol, people who are socially isolated and feel ostracized. Sometimes there can even be a profound sexual frustration."

But it's not that easy, he said.

"I think that we have to be careful to indicate that there's really a small percentage of people with a serious mental illness," he added.

People with diagnosed psychosis or schizophrenia are also at a higher risk for violent behaviors, said Young.

He added that while the physical guns aren't realistic causes for the violence, they are part of our culture.

He believes there is a small percentage of people who have mental illnesses who don't act predictably and aren't capable of adequately using firearms with good judgment.

"But even an experienced physician can never predict someone's behavior perfectly," he added. "Life is uncertain."

There are other, further factors that can lead people to commit these heinous acts, said Kenneth Wolf, Ph.D.

"These types of 'active shooters' can often be summarized as revenge seekers," said Wolf.

People who collect injustices, who feel that the community has deprived them, who feel alienated -- these are the kinds of people, anecdotally, who people see after a "psychological autopsy" of these shooters, he said.

"But you also have to look into things like 'did the person have a seizure disorder?' or 'did the person have a head injury?'" said Wolf.

Even things like "'was the person diabetic?'" could be helpful in determining whether a person was prone to a certain psychological disorder, he said.

Wolf, a partner in The Incident Management Team -- a state-funded crisis management, threat assessment and training company -- has made violence awareness training his goal.

Based in Novi, the Incident Management Team has presented to audiences in Mexico, Canada, Europe, Brazil and Asia.

"Of course, you can say anybody who is committing mass shootings is mentally ill," said Wolf. "But if you're truly psychotic, you're too disorganized to plan out something like a mass shooting."

He said there's a pathway to violence, a lot of preparation that could go into an attack -- you'd have to buy a weapon, train to shoot in some cases -- you'd have to be ready for the actual event.

Measures of prevention

Part of buying a weapon means being subjected to a background check.

Felonies, misdemeanors and other offenses could potentially prohibit an individual from being allowed to purchase a firearm.

"There are deficiencies" when it comes to the mental health issue, said West Bloomfield Police Chief Michael Patton. "Not every person who has a mental illness or a mental problem is put into the NICS system."

Further, some medical records are kept out of the Michigan Law Enforcement Information Network, LEIN, which is used for handgun permit background checks, Patton said.

"That's part of the ongoing and current discussion that we're having," he added. "We're trying to maintain everyone's privacy rights and we don't mean to stigmatize anyone with a mental illness, by any means ... but a number of those people -- perhaps a small number -- should be legally prohibited from possessing firearms."

The study group proposed by Commissioners Dwyer and Gerhsenson will focus on researching "the issues around identifying and surmounting any logistical, legal and political obstacles to compliance" with gun registration laws, and bridging the gap "between state (and) local agencies and the state and federal gun registration databases," according to the joint resolution.

Many have proposed a probable solution to a problem that's not quite clear yet. It starts at the top, with President Barack Obama proposing Jan. 16 that "Congress should restore a ban on military-style assault weapons, and a 10-round limit for magazines."

Among the 23 executive actions the president signed to supplement his recommendations were orders providing school personnel and law enforcement authorities with training for active shooter situations, and many more.

He cited the bill's failure to allow schools and other entities to opt out of such measures.

"While we must vigilantly protect the rights of law-abiding firearm owners, we also must ensure the right of designated public entities to exercise their best discretion in matters of safety and security," he said in a statewide media release. "These public venues need clear legal authority to ban firearms on their premises if they see fit to do so."

At the county level, Oakland is among the first counties to propose research on these topical issues.

Macomb County Board Chair David Flynn said, via email, there was nothing his county's board of commissioners was discussing at the moment in relation to gun violence and mental health measures, but that doesn't mean the board wouldn't consider something in the future.

Crisis management trainer Wolf and his firm will be playing their part, holding a seminar Tuesday at the Novi Police Department.

Among past seminar topics are "Active Intruder/Shooter Incidents: Preparation, Management, Recovery," and "Threat Assessment and Management of the Violent Individual."

While Wolf has been doing this for some time now, he sees the current desire of employers, school officials and the public to become informed on active shooter training in the workplace and at other public places.

"We are offering two sessions there and have about 200 people who have registered," said Wolf.

Gershenson and Dwyer have high hopes for their proposed study group. On Wednesday, their resolutions were sent to committees.

"I feel the study group ... is going to make some solid recommendations to the state," said Gershenson. "We're not going to take a long time, I'm hoping that we meet for a month and we make our recommendations ... there is some expediency to this whole movement."

The commissioners detailed that the study group, if implemented within the county, would be open to the public.

"We've seen an increase in violence over the years," said Dwyer. "If we look at all of these massacres that have been committed by people that are mentally ill, I think one of the keys is to get additional funding to assist in programs to treat (the) mentally ill."

Following along with the president's suggestions, Oakland County officials recently held an active shooter training session for local teachers.

The session featured experts from Oakland County Homeland Security Division and the Oakland County Sheriff's Office, training school staff how to react during an active shooter situation.

From the federal to the local realms, discussions are in place to try to curb gun violence by either banning certain weapons, suggesting funding for mental health, training for active shooter situations and more.

"I don't have the answer," said Dwyer. "That's the reason we've moved forward with the study group."